There has been a lot of discussion lately of where and how Apple will sell the Apple Watch -- through high-end luxury department stores in Paris, for example, or through special new displays inside of Apple Stores, guided into existence by fashion genius Angela Ahrendts. Finding new ways to present the watch is important, but how will Apple actually trigger a buy decision? [More...]

Citizenfour, a film documenting interviews director Laura Poitras conducted with whistle-blower Edward Snowden, won the Oscar for best documentary Sunday. The talks took place as Snowden blew the lid off the United States National Security Agency's surveillance activities. The award highlights the divisions in the U.S. over Snowden's actions and the question of national security. [More...]

The United States' National Security Agency and British spy agency GCHQ have hacked into the internal computer network of Gemalto, the world's largest maker of SIM cards, and stolen the cards' encryption keys, according to information in files leaked by whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Gemalto makes about 2 billion SIM cards a year, and sells them to 450 major wireless network carriers worldwide. [More...]

We've seen a lot of speculation this week on the Apple car -- everything from Apple building its own car from scratch to its buying or merging with Tesla. Like many, I think the best path would be an Apple/Tesla combination, but since I doubt Tim would want to work for Musk or Musk for Tim, the only real option would be an office of the CEO for both firms. [More...]

L!ber8's Tago Arc is aimed at the fashion conscious or those who like to use their jewelry to tell the world a little more about themselves. It has an e-ink screen, which is controlled using an NFC-enabled smartphone -- sorry, iPhone owners -- to let wearers switch up the design on the fly. Ordinary users can purchase a variety of looks, while budding Stella McCartneys can create their own. [More...]

Google is fighting a proposed amendment to Rule 41 of the U.S. Criminal Code that might allow authorities to hack into computers abroad. The amendment seeks to empower a magistrate in a district where activities related to a crime may have occurred to issue a warrant for remote search of computers, as well as seizure or copying of their files, under certain circumstances. [More...]

Unlike movies and music, video games aren't systematically archived and preserved. However, many older games, even from the DOS era, can be played via DOSBox, a free open source software emulator. It makes many older DOS games somewhat accessible to a new generation of gamers. It was even used to update the original Wolfenstein 3D and Commander Keen for release on Steam. [More...]

Lenovo has come under fire for preinstalling spyware on some of its laptops. The software, Superfish, uses the same techniques cybercriminals often employ to crack encrypted traffic. "Superfish is purposely designed to bypass the security of HTTPS websites in a manner that would allow malware and attackers to also bypass the security provided by HTTPS," said Bluebox cofounder Adam Ely. [More...]

Microsoft wants to bring big data to the mainstream, and its new Azure Machine Learning tools will play a major role in that effort. "We've learned how to generate and store data -- but so far, automation hasn't been able to turn that into information, which is data in context," said tech analyst Mike Jude. "That's why you need cognitive computing, machine learning and heuristics." [More...]

Apple has been awarded a patent for a virtual reality headset that can use an iPhone or iPod as a display. Patent number 8,957,835 was awarded by the USPTO to Apple for a "head-mounted display apparatus for retaining a portable electronic device with display." The abstract describes a device similar to the Gear VR, which weds a Samsung Note smartphone to a headpiece designed by Oculus. [More...]

Welcome to a new edition of Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, your weekly guide to the best and worst of gadgets that have just rolled off the production line for the first time or have the proverbial ink still drying on their press releases. On our conveyor belt this week are a gas-powered portable charger, a clever key fob, a flash drive for secret keepers and a pocket ghost detector. [More...]

Kaspersky Lab on Tuesday announced the discovery of what may be the most sophisticated malware ever. The malware's creators, whom Kaspersky has dubbed "The Equation Group," use a never-seen-before tactic to infect hard drives' firmware. The technique "makes traditional antivirus and antimalware software practically useless," said Protegrity VP of Products Yigal Rozenberg. [More...]

Considering the "meh" response Google Glass has gotten so far, Sony may be going out on a slender limb with SmartEyeglass, its take on wearable specs. Apart from a form factor that can charitably be called "obtrusive," there's the social unacceptability of turning one's eyes into a camera. "No one has shown that there is a market for this type of eyewear peripheral," said tech analyst Roger Kay. [More...]

Encryption has received a lot of attention lately as a solution to the growing data breach problem, but one of the hang-ups dogging the technology has been its ability to play nice in the cloud. That's especially true if an organization wants to control the keys by which its data is scrambled and use services offered by a cloud provider beyond simple storage. [More...]

While working on a piece about bad decisions recently, I revisited Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's decision not to hire Academy Award winner and successful lifestyle author and blogger Gwyneth Paltrow for a lifestyle editing position...because she didn't have a college degree. Let's explore the idea of Paltrow running Yahoo -- and we'll also take a look at my product of the week: an amazing new curved phone from LG. [More...]

"Old formats that contain documents, photos and other data may not be readable with the latest version of the software," warned Vint Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist for Google. Cerf added that backwards compatibility is not guaranteed, and over time there could be vast archives of digital content that becomes lost because it simply can't be accessed. [More...]

Remember the View-Master? You slotted a disc of slides called a 'reel' into the top, clicked the lever on the right, and were thrilled by the scenes before your eyes. Google and Mattel now are teaming up to revive and modernize the View-Master. Mattel on Friday announced a new version that works with Google Cardboard and Android smartphones. Mattel will offer the new View-Master and a sample experience reel this fall, for US$30. [More...]

In 10 years, will Apple CarPlay on the dash of a new Ford or GM be enough for Cook? A natural extension of Apple's continuity among products could go to a place where people and families still spend an insane amount of time -- inside of a car. Why stop at work, stop at the home, or stop at your pocket or wrist? If better communication is important to the world, how important is better transportation? [More...]

"Threat researchers do already share this data manually," Jeremy Demar, director of threat research at Damballa, told TechNewsWorld. "The value in systems like this isn't the ability to share raw intelligence [it's the] structured data that allows for the information to be accessed quickly and easily by the users." ThreatExchange is based on Facebook's ThreatData threat analysis framework. [More...]

Facebook on Thursday announced a new feature for members who want to plan for their passing into the digital beyond. The feature allows Facebook members to appoint a "legacy contact" to administer their account when they die. Legacy contacts will, among other powers, have the authority to download an archive of the deceased member's public information, including photos, posts and profile information. [More...]